me

Music Monday returns with a cover of “Selfless, Cold, and Composed,” by Ben Folds Five.

It’s taken me a while, but I’ve started to reestablish a working routine which I hope will continue to include these videos.

And it’s not a coincidence that my online graduate program at George Washington University began today. I believe that if I can keep myself motivated with multiple online projects, I’ll be more likely to stay engaged, productive. When I’m not working, not motivated, not only am I less productive (obviously), but I also more easily fall prey to depressive moods, which makes it even harder for me to work.

Anyway, Ben Folds Five’s second album, Whatever and Ever Amen was once a favorite of mine. Released in 1997, I vivid memories of driving around listening to the album over and over. Hopefully you’ll enjoy this song of theirs, as lip-synced by me.

I’m also trying to take a leading role in organizing efforts in support of a $15 minimum wage.

I’m excited about all these things for different reasons and in different ways. But the combination stands to make my life busy… and challenging for the next several months. I’m looking forward to all of it. Though graduate school has commanded much of my attention in the last few weeks and months.

Since receiving my acceptance letter from the GW School of Political Management in November, I’ve spent a fair amount of time weighing the pros and cons of starting the program this month or deferring to the summer.

Ultimately, for a number of reasons, I decided to start in January.

I’ve already received my first invoice from the university. I knew when I applied, when I received the admission letter, and when I accepted, that the costs would be considerable. And while I believe the value of the education (and degree) will ultimately far outweigh the initial costs, the financial reality nonetheless weighs heavy on me.

The next six months are likely to be some of the busiest and most challenging that I’ve faced in a long time. I always work hard on everything I do, but school will absolutely be my priority.

In a lot of ways, I had a great experience in college. But my last year at Miami was, I think, the most challenging of my life. Saying I had “relationship troubles” is overstating somewhat, but I’m not sure how else to briefly characterize the situation I faced. Couple that with deep depression and that tough end to my college career casts a dark shadow over the rest of it.

I wasn’t the most committed college student to begin with, but after nearly flunking out in my last year, my final GPA is embarrassing.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve looked for ways to redeem myself. Prove to myself that I can be academically successful. Now I have a chance to do that, in a field that I’m passionate about. But while I’m confident I can do well, there is always that little voice in my head that is fearful about failing.

Self-doubt is something I’ve long struggled with. But I don’t really doubt my intelligence, or my ability to perform well. I am (obviously) much older now, more mature. I’m also more confident and comfortable with myself than I was in college. Ultimately, I want to meet this challenge and prove to myself that I can do well in school. Prove that I can do well with all of it.

I’ll spend what is likely to be my last weekend of total freedom for a while relaxing and making whatever last-minute preparations are needed before class actually start…. And session…. And Kuleana Academy….

I used to spend several days over the Christmas holiday at a friend’s family’s property in Mokuleia. For those of you who know me, you know that it’s one of my favorite places in the entire world and I looked forward to spending the holidays there every year.

My friend has some changes of her own in taking place in her life, so I expect to spend fewer days and in that beautiful and serene place. And I was so delighted to start the New Year spending the day there.

With the holiday season receding behind me, I’m hoping to return to a more regular routine. Which will include a return to more frequent blog posting….But as 2017 proceeds, my schedule will quickly become full. The first half of the year could easily see my at my busiest in years.

Look for specifics in the coming days. For now, I just wanted to share some more pictures. Most of these are long exposures, similar to those I took a few weeks back of the Honolulu Lights.

So, it’s been a couple of weeks since I posted anything here. I haven’t been intentionally avoiding the blog. I just haven’t had anything to write about. Combine a dash of writer’s block with the general distraction of the holiday season and it’s a good recipe for blog neglect.

Admittedly, I don’t have really anything to share at the moment, either. But two weeks is already too long to go without so much as a peep.

There’s definitely some stuff coming up that will be worth writing about. Until then, however, I thought I’d share some pictures I took a couple weeks ago at the Honolulu City Lights.

You may have seen them already on Facebook, but if not here ya go.

In case another post fails to materialize before the end of the year, have a happy and safe New Year.

My affinity for it, I think, can be attributed to my sister. Though she’s only a year older, when I was young, I thought she was so cool. I have memories of musical artist posters adorning the walls of her room and wondering who they were. My discovery of Tracy chapman and my longtime love of Pink Floyd can be directly attributed to her.

After my Bar Mitzvah, I used some of my gift money to buy my first CD stereo and album CD; it was Paul Simon’s The Rhythm of the Saints.

In high school, I spent a considerable amount of money on CDs and concert tickets. The size of my music collection exploded: Counting Crows, Dave Matthews Band, Phish, Led Zeppelin, Elton John, morphine, The Wolfgang Press, and more. At 16, my very first concert was Meat Loaf in the spring of 1994 (I love the internet). In 1996, I and a good friend spent the night waiting in line for tickets to Pink Floyd at Arrowhead Stadium.

I was away at college when Napster and online sharing hit the mainstream. With little money to spend, my music collecting shifted away from CDs to MP3s and my catalog grew even larger.

Despite all this, I didn’t I really find a deep appreciation for music until I was much older. I can’t really say how I came to it. I think it was a combination of factors and people. People whose music knowledge and appreciation exceeded my own and from whom I learned a great deal. I learned to appreciate all kinds of melodies, rhythms, and musical styles. I also gained self-confidence to “like what I like” separate and independent of what was popular.

From classical music to some rap, to pop, and heavy metal. From indie rock, to Motown, electronic, or folk, or jazz, or alternative, or classic rock, or blues, I can find something to appreciate in it all. Even country music.

Now, considering myself an amateur audiophile, how I experience music is just as important as the music itself. I don’t spend nearly as much money acquiring music as I did in high school. And I don’t spend any considerable time downloading music the way I did in college. Instead, I’ve spent far more money on the means by which I listen to music.

Hundreds of dollars were spent on a home theater system; not for the purpose of experiencing surround sound movies, but for a full, apartment-filling, high-quality music-listening experience. The same can be said for headphones.

In both cases, I devoted substantial time researching the best quality product I could afford within my budget. Never being one for name brand following, I care less about the label and more about the quality. No Sony, or Beats Audio, Apple, or Panasonic, or even Bose.

There’s a part of me that really appreciates the musical options afforded in this digital age. Thousands of songs and hundreds of albums all on my computer, or smart phone, or iPod. Streaming music like Pandora or Spotify provides additional options, as well.

For some time, though, I’ve been contemplating a return to a simpler way of experiencing music. In high school, I flirted briefly with building a collection of vinyl LPs, but practical concerns of money and space put that flirtation quickly to rest. Now that I’m older, the audiophile part of my brain has been itching for a turntable and the requisite collection of vinyl records. Despite having more space and money, I’ve hesitated making this a more serious hobby worthy of devoting significant resources.

The Atlantic article, which I would encourage you to read if you feel even remotely about music as I do (and there’s some cool illustrations), gives me reason to reconsider a look at music as a serious hobby. Though I’ve mostly resisted completely abandoning CDs as a way of acquiring music, I never listen to them anymore. Instead, I simply put them on my computer and store the CD.

In much the way I’ve resisted digital music purchases, so is the case with books. Though I’ve bought a handful of Kindle books, I like the idea of all the books I’ve read perched on a bookshelf. I’ve thought about creating, essentially, wallpaper out of my CD liners as a kind of home decoration; like a bookshelf for my music.

Or, thinking about music in a slightly different way, I’ll refer to a quote at the closing of the Atlantic article;

Dacey recalls another time and place, which she describes as “four or five friends around a turntable and listening to a record that one person had just bought. We miss those kinds of rituals.” Like our ancestors gathered around a fire at night, we feel music best when we hear it out loud and together. A complex alchemy of neurochemistry, engineering, and human evolution, the magic that music conjures has no single, fixed location, but when conditions are right, as Rogers puts it, “you close your eyes and you’re right there.”

This conception of experiencing music hits me right in the nostalgic feels. Maybe I’ll take a hard look at building a good collection of vinyl records. Maybe its time to begin researching turntables.

Having grown up in Kansas and attended college in Ohio, I've called Hawaii home for more than 15 years.
I enjoy writing, music, photography, and movies, but politics has been my real passion for more than a decade. Keeping one eye toward national and international current events and politics, my focus is on this place that I love.
In this space, I will share my thoughts and feelings on all of this... and more. I hope you will enjoy.